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Make it three in a row for the Chucks

DUBOIS — The Punxsy boys' soccer team won its third straight and improved its record to 5-1 with a 4-1 victory over DuBois Central Catholic Tuesday evening in DuBois.

The Chucks jumped out to an early lead just 10 minutes into the contest when Tanner Evans buried one in the back of the net to give Punxsy a 1-0 lead.

Two minutes later, Trevor Peace struck a ball toward the net, and after a few deflections in front of the net, the ball ended up across the goal line.

The goal was scored an own-goal, though, so Peace wasn't given credit.

Through the first 20 minutes, Punxsy seemed to have the game well under control, but the tide turned a bit when Peace made a break towards the goal and was met by DCC's keeper, attempting to stop his shot.

The keeper came up on the short end of the collision and was injured, causing a stoppage in play, and Punxsy head coach Phil Shenkle said after that, his team seemed to lack the intensity it had come with in the first 20 minutes.

"For the first part of the first half, we had pretty good control of the game," he said. "After the stoppage happened, we kind of powered down, and they didn't. I give them credit for that."

Punxsy added two more goals late in the second half to make the final score seem a bit more out of reach than it actually was.

"The score looked like we had it under control the whole game," Shenkle said. "But it was unsettling as a coach for it to be that close."

Tyler Presloid scored both goals in the last seven minutes for Punxsy. The first came on a penalty kick, and the second was assisted by Carl Langley with just under two minutes to play.

Punxsy defeated DCC in its season opener Sept. 6 in Punxsutawney, but Shenkle said the team it played Tuesday has come a long way in a short period of time.

"They're a much better team this time around," he said. "They're playing better ball and playing better together. We were playing good enough to win, but maybe we were surprised by how much better they were. They've been a bit banged up this year and had quite a few scored on them, but I was really impressed with the way they played."

DCC's only goal came from Danny Leroy in the 20th minute of the first half.

Although he felt his team lost some its intensity after the stoppage, Shenkle was glad they played well enough to pick up the win and saw many promising signs before the incident.

"We probably had 10 opportunities in the first 20 minutes where the ball just didn't bounce our way or their keeper made a good save," he said.

Punxsy's next match is a home match against Redbank Valley Thursday.

Shenkle said he doesn't know much about Redbank's squad this year, but the Chucks have lost the pastfew outings between the teams, and he is looking forward to a well-contested game.